


It's Only Forever (Not Long At All)

by WonderlandPup



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: I don't know how to tag this, M/M, Neverland (Peter Pan), buts its not happy either, copy and paste was a bitch so no paragraphs are indented, idk if this counts as angst, its how things are, its something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderlandPup/pseuds/WonderlandPup
Summary: “What do you say, Yixing? Do you want to try being a Lost Boy?”orMaybe Yixing isn't as lost as Baekhyun thought
Kudos: 1





	It's Only Forever (Not Long At All)

It’s raining, when Yixing meets Baekhyun for the first time. It’s appropriate weather, really, given that Yixing is hiding under his bed, hoping his mother forgets him again, hoping his flimsy little bedroom door stays locked, that it sticks again, instead of actually opening. He almost jumps out of his skin when he hears a knock coming from his window. He hears it open, and lets out a whimper of fear when he sees someone step onto the floor in front of him. 

And then, a boy is leaning down looking under the bed, just as Yixing hears his mother coming up the stairs. 

“Quick, hide!”

The boy glances at the door where Yixing’s mother’s footsteps are still coming, and then back at Yixing, who’s shaking as he waits for the nightmare to inevitably start again tonight. With a quick nod, he shimmies under the bed next to Yixing, and it's then that Yixing realizes that this is not just another boy his age. He’s older, taller, he’s a teenager.

His legs hang out from the other side of the bed, and when Yixing frantically motions at them, the stranger curls up in a little ball, neat as could be. The door opens, and Yixing freezes, shaking in his place.

His mother doesn’t seem to be in her worst of moods, and she leaves when she doesn’t see him. He doesn’t move though, waiting until he thinks it might be safe to come out again. The other boy stays still too, steadily watching Yixing, apparently unconcerned about staying underneath a bed. 

Once Yixing hears his mother leave the house, probably off to another bar, he slides out from under the bed, the older boy following. As soon they’re standing upright, Yixing rounds on the older boy.

“Who are you? Why are you in my room? Why did you come through the window? How did you get to the window?”

“My name is Baekhyun, and I’m looking for something. I thought I saw it come in here.”

“What were you looking for?”

“My fairy. But she isn’t here after all.”

“A….fairy?” Was this boy, this Baekhyun, crazy?

Just as he asked, a light streaked past his window, towards the sky. Baekhyun smiled, looking sweet as sugar, and innocent as could be. With the streak of light behind him, Yixing thought he looked just a little like he could be an angel.

“That’ll be her. She’s probably going home.”

“...Right.” 

Baekhyun looked at Yixing, a little closely, for just a beat too long.

“Do you want to meet my fairy?”

***---***---***

When Baekhyun lands, and lets Yixing climb down from his back, it’s on an unfamiliar beach. Yixing looks around, looks at the ocean, bluer than anything he’s ever seen, and the beach, leading up to woods that looked perfect to play tag in. 

He jumps, when he hears yelling, and turns to see a group of boys running down to where he and Baekhyun stand. Baekhyun grins, laughing as he holds his arms out, and the boys pile into him.

The streak of light from before comes zooming around Yixing’s head, and he’s still so shocked from literally flying through the air that it takes him a minute to notice the streak stopped in front of his face, and hey, look at that, it actually is fairy.

She’s looking at him curiously, and when Baekhyun notices, he laughs again. 

“See Yixing? I told you that you could meet my fairy. Anyways, she’s Taeyeon. And these here are my Lost Boys. This is Jongdae, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Jongin, and Sehun. Tae, Lost Boys, this here is Yixing. He’s kind of a lost boy, too.”

Yixing frowned. Was he lost? He must be, if Baekhyun said he was, right? This boy could fly, and he had a fairy, and a whole magical land, surely he couldn’t be wrong.

“What do you say, Yixing? Do you want to try being a Lost Boy?”

Yixing thought of his mother, of all his times hiding under his bed, in the closet. Yes, maybe he is meant to be a Lost Boy. Baekhyun, as if sensing his decision, smiles, and Yixing thinks he’s never felt safer than he does right here, right now, in this moment.

***---***---***

Yixing splutters as he comes up for air, Jessica laughing as she helps steady him in the water. The pretty mermaid was teaching him to swim, but she spent as much time laughing at him as she did teaching. It wasn’t unkind, but it didn’t help when Baekhyun was lounging on the stones next to the lagoon, laughing alongside her.

Baekhyun came down almost every time that Yixing did, teasing the mermaids, and watching Yixing’s swim lessons with no small amount of amusement. Somewhere, in the back of Yixing’s mind, he wondered if maybe it was a little mean, how Baekhyun kept coming to his lessons, just to laugh, but then he looked at that smile, and pushed the thought away, enjoying that he was the cause of his new hero’s happiness.

When they weren’t at the mermaid’s lagoon, or in the Lost Boy’s secret hideout, Yixing found that they were all on adventures. Battling pirates, or following poor, sweet, Taeyeon hoping she would take them to more fairies, but sometimes, just sometimes, Baekhyun would steal Yixing away from the others, and take him to Pirate’s Edge.

There was something different about those days, where Baekhyun and Yixing would sit on the cliffside, and Baekhyun would ask about Yixing’s home, his world. Those days, Baekhyun seemed different. Kind of lost, Yixing thought, but in a way that the Lost Boys weren’t. Baekhyun, Yixing thought, was kind of like a pretty doll that all the girls in his class would love, except that on these days at Pirate’s Edge, the pretty little Baekhyun doll seemed to be cracked a bit, just a little more each time.

Yixing wondered why Baekhyun would ask him these questions, when it obviously made him sad, but he wanted to help Baekhyun, wanted to be his favorite Lost Boy. But the more answers he gave to Baekhyun’s questions, the more broken the older boy seemed to be. And when, this time, Baekhyun just gets up and flies away, Yixing isn’t sure what to think. So he stays there, really, and watches the clouds race, until he hears a tinkling bell and looks over to see Taeyeon, watching Baekhyun’s figure disappear from sight.

The fairy is frowning, and she chimes again, but Yixing just looks at her, and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, Tae. I don’t speak fairy.”

Taeyeon nods, and the two of them sit there and watch the clouds where Baekhyun had vanished.

***---***---***

The summer passes, and Yixing learns to swim. Fall comes, the colors change, and Baekhyun teaches him to fly. Yixing is thrilled. Only eight years old, and he’s the only Lost Boy that Baekhyun has taught how to fly. When winter comes around, the mermaid’s lagoon freezes over, and Jessica waves at him from beneath the ice as he and Baekhyun fly over it. The Lost Boys pile on top of each other in their hideout, taking turns reading books to each other, as Baekhyun sits to the side and watches them, just almost laughing with them all when Chanyeol tries to change his voice for the characters.

When spring comes along, the island comes alive again, and so does Baekhyun. He leads the Lost Boys’ adventures, and asks Yixing to teach him something. So Yixing teaches him a few words of Chinese. Sun, rain. Love, family. Hello, goodbye. Baekhyun repeats these like a mantra sometimes, when the Lost Boys are asleep and he thinks Yixing is, too. Yixing takes comfort in the way he says them, in his accent, but the words make him homesick, even when the voice soothes him to sleep.

***---***---***

It’s summer again, when Yixing tells Baekhyun that he wants to go home. 

“Why?”

“I miss home, Baekhyun hyung.”

“This is your home!”

“No, hyung. I mean home. I mean families.”

“Your family was awful. You were hiding under a bed when I first met you! Why, Yixing? Why would you choose to go back to that?”

“That, Baekhyun that was just my mom. I could live with my grandmother, maybe. Please. I want to go home.”

And Baekhyun is looking at him in a way he never has before, like Yixing himself is tearing his world apart, and this is wrong, all wrong, he can’t disappoint Baekhyun, Baekhyun is his hero but he needs to go home-

And Baekhyun is flying away, and Yixing wants to follow him, but there’s a tugging on his shirt, and when he turns, Sehun and Jongin are standing there, eyes big and pitiful, with the others standing a few paces behind them.

Yixing pulls them in, hugs them, and then Taeyeon is sprinkling her sparkly dust on top of him and gesturing for him to follow. She leads him up, up, up, and up, higher still, and when he passes that star that centers many of the Lost Boys’ fairy tales, when Taeyeon brings him back down again, he sees it. He sees home.

They land, and he turns to say goodbye to Taeyeon, but she’s gone. He gives an experimental jump, but he cannot fly, and there is no streak of light to show him the way back.

***---***---***

Baekhyun changes a bit, after Yixing leaves. He throws himself into the Lost Boys’ adventures. He starts fights with pirates, more than before, throwing himself at them in anger, for imagined slights, and far-fetched insults. 

Taeyeon frowns as he gets worse, but the Lost Boys have fun on these adventures, and don’t question what the frustrated tinkling sounds mean. Baekhyun is distant when the boys return home, sitting to the side, and looking away as the boys read bedtime stories.

Chanyeol still tries to make the voices, and the boys laugh, but Baekhyun looks away, mouth forming words he learned, but never says out loud, not where the boys can hear. Baekhyun goes to Pirate’s Edge by himself, repeats the Chinese words he knows. 

Sun. Rain. Love. Family. Hello. Goodbye. The goodbye always sounds bitter, even to him. When he finishes, he jumps from the cliff and flies away. Taeyeon watches, as he jumps, and each day, he gets closer and closer to water below before flying away. When the day comes that he skims the water as he falls, she shakes her head, and heads for the stars.

***---***---***

Yixing is at the library, stretching, when he sees a streak of light. He shoots to his feet, and heads down the rows of shelves. He doesn’t see anything, and sighs. 

He greets his grandmother when he gets home, kissing her on the cheek before going to his room to study. It’s when he shuts the door that he hears it. 

“Hey, Taeyeon. I thought I saw you at the library earlier.” 

He turns and faces the fairy, and grins as she flies close to give him a sad smile. She chimes, and he shakes his head.

“Sorry, Tae. Believe it or not, I still don’t speak fairy.”

He expected a smile, or a laugh, but instead Taeyeon grimaced. 

“Taeyeon, why are you here? Is Baekhyun okay?”

It looks like she sighs, but he just hears a sad jingle, like the last chime of a broken bell. It’s all he needs.

“I’m not a grown up yet. I can go back. Take me to him.”

***---***---***

When Yixing lands, it hits him, how nothing has really changed. The sea is still that same shade of blue, and the sandy beaches lead up to those woods. If Yixing lets himself see it, the woods seem more sparse than he remembers, and the sandy beach doesn’t quite seem to go on forever like it should. 

The Lost Boys all come running down, and when they realize that this teenager is Yixing, they all shout excitedly, jumping into his arms. Jongin is the first one there, the sensitive boy sniffling when he sees that Yixing is almost grown up.

Yixing looks up from hugging the boys, and sees Baekhyun strolling down to him, slowly, looking apprehensive. When Yixing was eight, that look on Baekhyun’s face would’ve been reserved for days at Pirate’s Edge. It’s disconcerting, to see it out here in the open, in front of all his Lost Boys.

Baekhyun reaches Yixing, and it’s with a jolt that Yixing realizes that he’s taller than Baekhyun. He must be older than him now, and looking closer, with older eyes, Baekhyun looks less like a hero, and more like a child. 

“Hi, Baekhyun hyung. Or, well, I’m seventeen now, so I guess I’m the hyung?”

Baekhyun laughs, and it sounds just like before, like when he’d told Yixing that he could meet his fairy, and Yixing’s heart breaks, because now, now he’s old enough to hear the bitterness hiding beneath. 

“Yeah, I guess you are. You came back just in time though. Any later and you’d be too old. No adults can come here.” 

And just like that, Yixing is a Lost Boy again. The Lost Boys all look up to him as the oldest, they fight for his attention, and to his surprise, Baekhyun does, too. Yixing leads their adventures, at their insistence, and he goes to Pirate’s Edge with Baekhyun. 

This time, Yixing teaches him to dance, and he never thought Baekhyun might be this good at it. He has something in his dance, his expression, that Yixing’s teachers would love. The lessons all end with Baekhyun jumping from the cliffside to fly away, and without fail, Yixing’s heart leaps every time, as just for a split second, he forgets Baekhyun can fly. It doesn’t help, though, that Baekhyun lets himself almost hit the water every time, pulling away at the last second. 

Yixing sits on the edge, and watches Baekhyun pull up, and lets out a sigh of relief, pretending he doesn’t see how Baekhyun glances up at him. There’s a chiming next to him, and Yixing doesn’t even look at Taeyeon, eyes tracking Baekhyun.

“God, he’s such a boy.” The fairy laughs, Yixing can hear the peals of it through the bells. It was such a boy thing to do, to try stupid stunts to impress the older boys. It was so, so weird to see Baekhyun seeing him as someone older. Someone to impress.

But the more Yixing thought about it, the more he realized Baekhyun had always tried to impress him, impress the Lost Boys. He needed them to love him, really, and how could Yixing not do exactly that, when he was so wonderful? Even through the bitterness, and the loneliness, at the center of it all, he was Baekhyun. The center of this magical land, the center of the Lost Boys, the center of the whole universe. Baekhyun.

***---***---***

Yixing stays for a season. But then the colors change, and it’s time to leave.

“You’re going to do this again?”

Baekhyun doesn’t look so angry yet, not like last time. Not like Yixing is sure he will later, when he’s alone and the Lost Boys can’t see. Instead, he looks like his heart is shattering, and Yixing thinks that is worse than any anger Baekhyun could have shown him. 

“I couldn’t stay before, and I can’t stay now, either, Baek. I have school, and responsibilities.”

Baekhyun shakes his head, and to Yixing’s surprise there are tears forming.

“You can’t. You can’t just leave again. What, are you gonna abandon the Lost Boys again? Do you know how long they begged me to go bring you back? I tried, Yixing, I tried so hard to do what you wanted me to. I would have given you this whole world. But you wanted home, and I tried so hard to let you live there in peace. You can’t just come back, and do this to us all again. You can’t! You can’t leave the boys, you can’t leave me.”

Yixing doesn’t think he’s ever seen Baekhyun cry, ever heard his voice crack. It sounds, to Yixing, how he imagines souls sound when they crack, too.. A terrible sense to experience, and one that is entirely of his own doing.

“You could come with me, you know. Bring the Lost Boys, you could all stay with me. This doesn’t have to be a goodbye. This doesn’t have to be it.”

“I can’t.”

“Baekhyun, whatever happened in that world before you came here-”

“I can’t. I can’t exist there forever. And the Lost Boys belong here. I brought them here. To save them. And keep them safe. I won’t destroy them by letting them go.”

“Then there’s nothing else.” Yixing looks at Baekhyun, and imagines the life they could have. It will never happen, and he knows it. “I’m sorry Baek. I’m so, so, sorry.”

And this time, Yixing flies away first. He stopped by the hideout, and said his goodbyes, something telling him that he would never see these boys again. He tried not to see his Nini crying, hugging him close, and shushing him gently. And then Taeyeon was tugging on his sleeve, oh so gently, and off they went.

He stopped before passing the star this time, turning to Taeyeon.

“I won’t be coming back, will I?”

Taeyeon shakes her head sadly, and Yixing swallows down a lump in his throat.

“You gotta take care of them all for me, you hear? Especially Baekhyun.”

She nods, and Yixing thinks she understands, maybe even more than he does.

“I can find my way back from here. Thank you, Taeyeon. Maybe in whatever life I see you again in, I’ll know how to speak fairy.”

He flies ahead, past the star, and when he looks back, there’s nothing but a black sky behind him.

***---***---***

Yixing sighs, stretching out his muscles. Teaching dance was possibly one of his favorite things in the world, and he loved it being his job, but some days, it just made him tired. 

“You alright, Xing?” Minseok is looking at him in concern, and Yixing smiles.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just tired. I want to get my set of kids ready for this rehearsal, and I’ve got a couple that are really struggling. They’re trying their best, though. And they’re young enough that that’s all that matters.”

Minseok grins at him. “Yeah, you have the cute age. I have the brats. Trade with me?”

“Never.”

They laugh as they grab bags and lock up the studio.

“Yifan, Junmyeon, and I are going out for drinks tonight for my birthday. I’m busy on Saturday, so we thought we’d celebrate a little early. You in?”

“Yeah, sure. Remind me how old you are again, I never can remember, since you’ve just looked thirteen since I met you.”

“Yah, you’re just jealous that I have great genes. And I’m gonna be twenty-eight, so you’d better respect your elders.”

It’s as he’s talking that Yixing thinks he sees it. A shadow, of a boy, going across the sky. He looks closer, watches the rooftops, but nothing moves. He must have imagined it. Shaking his head, Yixing turns his attention back to Minseok.

“Right, of course, hyung, I forgot how you’re basically elderly now. How much longer until you get senior discounts, again?”

He lets Minseok hit him playfully, and they walk up the street to the Black Pearl, their favorite bar, where Junmyeon and Yifan are waiting for them.

Yixing pushes down thoughts of never-aging boys, boxy smiles, and twinkling fairies, and lets Junmyeon pull him onto the dance floor. He hasn’t thought of Baekhyun in a while, and he won’t start now. He won’t. 

***---***---***

He’s walking down to his apartment, later that night, maybe the next morning, who actually knows silly things like time?, and this time he’s sure he sees a boy fly, darting the rooftop from one building to another. 

“Baekhyun?”

The street around him is silent, deserted, and he’s about to give up on a response, about to blame the alcohol for him seeing things, when Baekhyun drops down in front of him.

He hasn’t changed. Of course he hasn’t. He’s still sixteen, still the center of his own universe. 

“I wasn’t sure if it was you. I saw you dance with those kids, and you’re a lot older now. But I still wasn’t sure.”

And that’s that, and Baekhyun is here, and Yixing thinks he may be just a little too drunk to process this right now. So he leads Baekhyun up to his apartment, and pulls out a blanket and pillow that he tries to toss on the couch for Baekhyun, but he misses, because of course he does. 

“Silly Yixing. You should go shower.”

And so Yixing does, and when he comes out, Baekhyun is practicing the dance that Yixing was teaching to his class earlier, and now that Yixing is looking at him, he can place it, that thing about Baekhyun’s dancing that he could never place before.

“It’s your pain. Your loneliness.”

“What?”

“Your dancing. I could never figure out what it was that I was seeing in you when you danced before. It was all your loneliness, wasn’t it?”

Baekhyun sits on the window seat, one knee pulled up to his chin. “What do you know about loneliness, Yixing? You’re the one that left us.”

“I know.”

Baekhyun sighs. “Come back with me.”

“Baek, I’m an adult. With a job. Besides, grown ups can’t go to Neverland.”

“You could. If I let you.”

“I wouldn’t want to.” It’s a lie, really, but Yixing has responsibilities, he can’t just go off to Neverland. 

“We have two new Lost Boys. Yukhei and Chittaphon. They’re a good fit, with us.”

“See there? You don’t need me.”

Baekhyun puts his chin on his knee, looks out the window.

“I need you, Yixing. Please.”

“You know I can’t, Baekhyun.” It comes out sharp, and Yixing winces, as Baekhyun flinches. “I don’t want to hurt you, Baekhyun. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But Neverland isn’t right. Isn’t normal. We’re not supposed to be kids forever.”

Baekhyun looks tiny in Yixing’s window, and vulnerable, like saying the wrong thing might just break him after all. “I won’t come back, you know. This is it.”

“Why not stay? I could help you, all of you-”

“What would I get? I don’t want to be an adult, I don’t want to live in this awful place where all these bad things keep happening. I want to be safe. I want to keep my Lost Boys safe. So what will I get, in return for giving up my safety? Will I get you?”

“Me? No, Baekhyun, you wouldn’t get me.”

“Why not?”

“Why...why not? Baekhyun you’re still a kid. I’m an adult, god, no, that wouldn’t be right.”

“I’m older than you, you know. I’m really old. Hundreds of years.”

Yixing’s heart aches. “No wonder you’re lonely.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you like my other Lost Boys, Xing.” Baekhyun’s voice is sad, and tired, like all the arrogance and energy and life had drained out completely. “I’ve seen how cruel this world is, and I wanted to save you before you saw it, too. Please. You can come back to Neverland, I’ll let you. I’ll save you. It doesn’t have to be too late.”

“I belong here.”

Baekhyun looks at him, long and steady, and suddenly Yixing feels like that eight year old boy crawling out from under the bed again, being promised fairies, and adventures, and a life without grown ups telling him what to do. And then Baekhyun just stands and opens the window. And with one last, heartbroken look at Yixing, he jumps right out. 

Yixing doesn’t move, knows Baekhyun will fly, and yes, there it is, the silhouette of a boy going up to the stars. Yixing watches him disappear, and then he closes his window and goes to bed, trying to convince himself that Baekhyun would be okay.

***---***---***

The Lost Boys are all curled around Baekhyun, as he lulls the last of them to sleep, and Jongin rolls over and looks at Baekhyun. 

“Hyung? When is Yixing coming home?” His eyes are already half closed, and really Baekhyun could probably just not answer, and the boy would never know. Instead, he smoothes Jongin’s hair down, and presses a light kiss to his forehead.

“Yixing’s a grown up now, Nini.” He could add that grown ups aren’t allowed, but Jongin already knows this. He could say that Yixing doesn’t want to come back, but that would break Jongin’s heart. No, it’s best to leave it at that.

He makes sure his Lost Boys are all asleep, and he flies out to Pirate’s Edge. Captain Hook is there, sitting on the cliff, looking out at sea. The Captain jumps to his feet when Baekhyun lands, but Baekhyun just shakes his head.

“I don’t have the energy to fight tonight. Can we just sit here? Just for tonight.”

The Captain narrows his eyes, but then sighs and nods, sitting down as Baekhyun joins him.

“What’s your damage, kid?”

“One of my Lost Boys, he. He grew up. He chose to. I tried to bring him back, but he didn’t want Neverland. He didn’t want me.”

The Captain nodded. “That’s life, kid. People grow. They change. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes it’s for the worse. Nothing you can do about it.”

“I hate it. That’s why I keep my boys here. I have to protect them.”

“You can’t protect everyone all the time. Sometimes, people slip through the cracks. Sometimes you lose them.” There’s something in his eyes, that has Baekhyun hesitating.

“I’m not sure if I lost him, or if he lost me. I’m sure I am nothing more than a ghost to him, and yet, I am the one who feels haunted.”

“Yeah, kid. I know about that, too.”

“Who….who did you lose, Captain? Who slipped through the cracks?”

“My son. It was a long, long time ago. We were traveling across the sea, seeking safety, refuge. There was a storm, and he was gone. I had lost his mother only a few months before, and then the storm came, and he was lost to me as well.”

Baekhyun reaches out, about to speak, apologize, but he hesitates, and as he does, another pirate comes up.

“Heechul, uh, Captain sir! We’re ready to sail sir.”

“I’ll be right down.” He looks at Baekhyun, and maybe he sees the apology on his face, because he just gives him a smile, sadder than anything Baekhyun has seen before.

“It’s alright. I understand. I know. I guess I’ll be seeing you around, kid.”

Baekhyun flies back to the hideout, and dreams of Yixing, dancing around a shipwreck, as Baekhyun yells for him in the dark of a storm.

***---***---***

Yixing goes out on his first date with a martial artist named Zitao. He’s enigmatic, charming, and has no small amount of childlike joy. It reminds him, a little, of Baekhyun and the Lost Boys, of how they might be if they ever grew up. They last a long time, and Yixing thinks Zitao might be the one, but in the end, they want different things, and go their separate ways, both assuring the other that they would stay friends.

Yifan takes him out to get drinks, and after a few too many, all Yixing can think about is Neverland, is Baekhyun, is the Lost Boys. He starts to tell Yifan about him, but he’s not so drunk that he doesn’t realize how insane Neverland would sound, so he leaves out what he can.

“When I was little, I had a friend. He was my hero. He saved me from my mom, you know.” Yifan is looking at him, giving him his undivided attention. Yixing never talks about his mom. “So I went to stay with this boy for a while, before moving in with my grandmother.”

“When I left to go be with my grandmother, I think I hurt his feelings. He had built up this image, in his head, you know, of his family, and I….I was a part of it. I didn’t see him for years after that, and then one day I did. And he was, he was exactly the same. I stayed in touch for a little while, and over time, I could see how he actually had changed. He was bitter, and lonely, and he wanted the whole world to love him. I fell out of contact again, but a few years ago, I saw him, talked to him.”

“Wouldn’t you know, he was the same kid as before. But this time, I could see that he hadn’t changed. That bitterness, that loneliness, that need for love? That had been there from the start and I had missed it. I should have stopped him, Yifan. I should have helped him.”

Yifan is glancing at Yixing’s cup, like he’s debating whether or not to let Yixing finish it or not before cutting him off. “What did you do, instead?”

“I let him go.” Yixing’s voice is a whisper, horrified and hurting. “I let the child go, broken from remembering.”

***---***---***

Yixing is sitting in his circle of students, teaching. He tries to tell them that they’re made of stronger things than they realize, that they can, in fact, do this dance. And then time is up, and they’re leaving and Minseok is standing there in the doorway with his arms crossed.

“What about you, Xing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What strong stuff are you made of?” At first Yixing thinks that Minseok is teasing him again, but there’s something in Minseok’s expression that has him being honest.

“I am made of all the things this world could not take from me.” He thinks of Baekhyun. “And of all the things it could.”

***---***---***

For years after Baekhyun gives Yixing up, he repeats those precious few Chinese words like a prayer, as though they might save him. Sun. Rain. Love. Family. Hello. Goodbye. They never do, and he keeps those words to himself, away from his Lost Boys.

Sometimes, he sees the Pirate Captain, Heechul, on Pirate’s Edge, and they’ll hold their nightly truces. Sometimes, Baekhyun shares those precious few Chinese words with him. And then come morning, he’s back to leading his Lost Boys in battles against the pirates, just like always. He gets a new Lost Boy, named Taeyong, and Taeyong becomes the second Lost Boy ever to learn how to fly. Taeyong, though, stays with him.

The seasons pass, and nothing changes.

***---***---***

Yixing squints, not believing what he’s seeing. He’s laying in bed, and he could swear he sees the shadow of a boy pass by his window. He knows, of course, that he didn’t, really. It has been decades since he last saw Baekhyun, and now the Neverland boy was nothing more than a fairy tale he told his grandchildren, when they had been young enough to listen. 

He closes his eyes, too old, and too tired, to handle the disappointment of never seeing Baekhyun again. The doctors tell his family he will be fine, but sometimes, men know their time is close when even the doctors do not. He sighs, a deep breath in, a deep breath out, enjoying the peace around him.

And then he hears it. A chiming bell, and he opens his eyes to see a little familiar face glowing right in front of him.

“It’s good to see you, old friend. Would you believe that I still don’t speak fairy?”

Taeyeon gives him a watery smile, just as a boy drops into his window, a silhouette against the moon, and just like the first time Yixing saw him, he is reminded of angels.

“I wondered if you would ever come visit me again. Hello, Baekhyun.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from David Bowie's "Underground"
> 
> Yes, Baekhyun is actually Heechul's son, fight me


End file.
